PAUL HUME LAID ON THE CRACK PIPE FOR THIS SECTION
Looking through VR2 and I noticed the often-unused or abused satellite jackpoint...
Some of the things I noted are the fact that it has a higher base bandwidth (50) as compared to 20 for a legal or illegal connection. Access is a bit harder (+2).
Ok satellites... good bandwidth but harder access. Let's cover this, break out those dusty Virtual Realities 2.0 books and consult pages 29 and 30. Gee guess satellites are no big deal in the future! They only get a few short paragraphs!
According to VR2 you experience a signal lag using a satellite that reduces your Reaction by -2. Excuse me? If you buy the millisecond response cycles of a William Gibson style cyberworld ok, but if you start giving Reaction modifiers for satellite runs you better REALLY start piling on the negatives once people start hopping RTGs. What do you think those signals travel on anyways? Overseas is almost all satellite, and long haul continental traffic is either satellite and/or microwave towers. So that makes little sense given that you don't get Reaction penalties for hacking systems on the other side of the planet. So that's right out. (Or alternately every RTG you travel you get a cumulative -2 Reaction).
Trace IC can trace you back to the satellite jackpoint...I'd go so far as to say they can only trace you back to the groundstation the satellite was feeding data to - they would not know what satellite you were using unless they called the ground station up and asked them to identify a particular feed (very doubtful).
Next you have to have satlink interface software to locate a commsat..hmm..uhm ok (we'll get to this later as well). Well assuming satellite constellations continue to grow like they are now I'd the target numbers half what they are in the book. the only time you'll have to ever worry about NOT having satellite access is if you are on one of the poles (actually Iridium even works there..).
Throw out that crap on decking the satellite, thats pretty bogus. I'd simply make the decker pay for satphone service like anything else or hack into the satcomm company and hack an account. The satellite will not be set up to "hack into" I'm sorry. It's a relay station.
Forget the concept of it being an system that you can be "in". You simply connect to the satellite and bammo you're on the normal Matrix, probably starting in your 'home' LTG (the one you signed up for the satcomm service in). The satellite is part of the invisible backbone of the Matrix, you won't even notice you are on a satellite connection.
This also means you can't do the double-bogus hack into another satellite network from the current one trick they mention. Urr, sorry folks but while satellites in the same constellation may/will communicate between themselves its not something you can hack into. Keep repeating "satellites are relays satellites are relays" over and over.
That's it as far as the rules mechanics for satellites go and thats as it should be! You won't even think about satellites in the future because they will be everywhere! Tracing programs should be practically worthless in SR if you think about it - how could you track someone using a HALO relay for example? Don't think current cellphone tech, that stuff could very easily go away if/when cheap HALO and satellite networks are up and running. You might be able to know they are somewhere in satellite X's or a HALO stations footprint but that can be a damn large footprint!
On into the book we have the rules for building satlink interfaces (pg 88). Whoa what were they smoking when they came up with this section? Paul Hume must be the owner of one of those giant 80's satellite dishes. These things are _big_ even by todays standards. Standard portable (1/2m across, 5kg) Large portable (1m across, 8kg) -1 to TN for satellite location Fixed-base earth station (unknown, not stated) -2 TN for satellite location Mobile fixed-base earth station (trucks and trailers) Guess bonus is same as above
That's __gigantic__ chummers. You can get an Iridium satphone NOW that as small as a shoe or smaller. This needs to be completely revised, and since we've stated that you won't have any problems FINDING satellites you may want to say that any TN modifiers are for keeping connections if you start moving, go into buildings (not recommended!) or things get in the way of the antenna. Most satphone antennas will be about as big as a cellphone antenna is now.
The prices are also way whacked out, 800¥ for a portable antenna? Huh? Never heard of of DirectTV? :) The temporary dish components was OBVIOUSLY cribbed from William Gibson and while cool I think the electronics price is ridiciculous (1000¥!!).
Then we have the construction part...all I can say is yeah RIGHT. The satcomm interface should be a simple box you can buy at Radio Shack. You won't have to "tune" it for your deck any more then you have "tune" your current modem to work in your PC when you upgrade processors. Give it a fixed cost and the satellite interface software should be very small (its just a database and some drivers for antenna tuning). If you're on the Matrix patching into a satellite you won't need the software since you could grab that from off the companies support site, or use their online database.
The actual interface would be a small box you plug your cyberdeck into and that's about it. Hell you could probably get satphones that have a jack for plugging decks into! Ditch the entire bogus section on satlink interfaces unless you are running a really wierd shadowrun campaign where all the satellites have gotten shot down or something and it's really hard to get legit satphone hardware. And guess what, if you build a new cyberdeck you don't need to make a new interface, just use the old one!
Ok, you can't hack a satellite for access, the antennas will be damn small, there will be a LOT of satellites to connect to, you still have the normal problems with satphones (no indoors use, make sure the view is unobstructed). Satphones will still cost money in the future though. So going by current rates (just as a guide) I'd start charging my friendly deckers 2¥/minute for access in addition to the cost of the hand unit (3000¥ now so about 300¥ in the future?) Of course you have to subscribe to the service, which by itself won't cost much and will include the software you need for your deck. Let's call it 50¥ for giggles. Bandwidth will be FIXED, sorry chummers. You want more bandwidth I'm sure the satcomm company will be happy to give you extra channels for a premium price. Make the base bandwidth..hmm..15 (its not really intended for hardcore decking) and every multiple of that they get charged x2. So if they used 75Mp that's a charge of 2^5=32¥ right off the bat. That's per minute, using the highest spike.